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After seeing recent headlines about the Federal Housing Administration needing a taxpayer bailout by the Treasury, you might have wondered whether the FHA is heading down the fiscal drain a la Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have required billions in federal assistance just to stay in business.

The answer is no for traditional FHA borrowers — primarily moderate- income first-time purchasers or people with limited cash for down payments and less-than-perfect credit histories.

There’s a strong possibility that the FHA won’t require any such help from the Treasury — which, in any event, wouldn’t occur until September.

Meanwhile, the FHA is tweaking its program rules — a process that could affect some loan applicants. The changes are designed to improve revenue flows to the agency and curb losses.

Among the most immediate changes: New borrowers early next year are likely to be charged slightly higher annual mortgage insurance premiums — 1.35 percent of the loan balance instead of the current 1.25 percent.

For most people, the change won’t be problematic, but it could cause some buyers to turn to FHA competitors — private mortgage insurers whose monthly premiums on loans for applicants with high credit scores might prove more attractive than the FHA’s.

To increase revenue streams for the long haul, the FHA is also abandoning the practice of allowing borrowers to cancel annual mortgage insurance premium payments when a loan balance drops to 78 percent of the property value. The change means that borrowers obtaining 30-year FHA loans could pay premiums for decades.

Is this a big deal?

Clem Ziroli Jr. of First Mortgage Corp. in Ontario, Calif., thinks it might encourage some borrowers with better credit to refinance out of FHA loans and seek better deals in the conventional marketplace.

But Paul E. Skeens of Colonial Mortgage Group in Waldorf, Md., sees it differently: With fixed 30-year mortgage rates in the mid- to upper-3 percent range that are virtually certain to increase — maybe significantly if the economy improves — “everybody is going to want to keep these loans forever,” he predicted.